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When Canadian soprano Meghan Lindsay agreed to appear in the title role of Handel’s opera Alcina for Opera Atelier’s 2014-15 season, she never thought her job description would include standing on a stepladder for three hours, naked, except for 20,000 leaves hot-glue-gunned onto a piece of fabric.

Oh yes, and there were seven naked men on the ground around her.

This was for the annual Opera Atelier season announcement photo shoot, a moment which is rapidly rising to the top of illustrative titillation lists, kind of like the cultural version of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

“It all makes perfect sense. Really!” insists Opera Atelier’s co-artistic director, Marshall Pynskoski. “We’ve been waiting for years to do Handel’s Alcina and we finally have the right soprano in Meghan and the right creative team to do it. So we had to celebrate in an appropriately wild and crazy way.”

Alcina tells the story of a sorceress who changes men into animals, clouds, trees, anything she pleases. And at the end of the opera, she releases them.

“It’s a split second of erotic passion and sheer magical release combined together. What a challenge to capture it.”

It was indeed a challenge, since it involved 20,000 silk leaves attached to the fabric that semi-demurely covers Lindsay’s nether regions, as well as 20 other bags of leaves from the yards of various friends and employees to help decorate the ground around her, on which seven young men from the ensemble sprawl in total nudity.

“We had three days to get it all ready and the people from our office all chipped in. Even the lady from the Second Cup across the street where we always go lent a hand. It was a true ensemble project,” Pynkoski said.

The one exception was Pynkoski’s wife and co-artistic director, Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, who decided to stay home. Her one comment was, “Too many naked people for me.”

Throughout it all, Lindsay passed the time talking on her cellphone. What was she telling people?

“I imagine that she was surrounded by naked men,” suggested Pynkoski.

Alcina will open Opera Atelier’s season on Oct. 23 and run through Nov. 1.

The second work presented will be the Berlioz version of Gluck’s setting of Orpheus and Eurydice, which Toronto’s renowned Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra will also be a part of.

This production will star Mireille Lebel and Peggy Kriha Dye. It will run from April 9 to 18, 2015.

Still to come this season is Opera Atelier’s production of Lully’s Persée, which will play at the Elgin Theatre from April 26 to May 3, before departing on an invitational visit to the Royal Opera House at the Palace of Versailles from May 23 to 25.

Opera Atelier enjoyed a triumphant debut at Versailles in 2012, with its production of Lully’s Armide.

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